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Updated: 13:15
INDEPENDENT PRESIDENTIAL hopeful Senator David Norris has secured the backing of a third local authority, following Waterford City Council’s decision to support his nomination.
Six councillors votes in favour, three against and five abstained, according to RTÉ’s Damien Tiernan.
Meanwhile, Dana Rosemary Scallon also secured the support of a third local authority today after Donegal County Council voted to back her nomination.
Cork County Council voted this morning against supporting Senator David Norris’ bid for the presidency.
PJ Coogan of Cork 96FM reports that nine councillors voted in favour of the motion to back Norris, 20 voted against and seven abstained from the vote.
Both Dana and Norris are continuing their push to be added to the ballot today as several councils meet to consider formally pledging their support for either candidate.
Fingal and Laois county councils are already supporting Norris, while Carlow and Roscommon yesterday pledged their support for Dana. The candidates need the backing of four councils before tomorrow’s deadline.
The following councils are meeting later today to discuss and vote on the proposed nomination of the candidate in brackets:
Two more county councils are meeting tomorrow morning to decide on their support: Kilkenny is to discuss supporting either candidate and Kildare is set to vote on a proposal to back Dana.
Yesterday evening, Norris failed to secure the expected backing of South Dublin County Council. The nomination of Norris was the only one the council voted on yesterday.
Meanwhile, confirmed independent candidate Seán Gallagher criticised Mary Davis over the level of local authority support she has built up so far, saying she should have freed up extra councils who had agreed to support her once she met the required level of four.
Davis responded by saying that “you cannot rescind a nomination or give it back”. However, Gallagher later issued a statement saying that candidates can only submit the votes of four councils and all others are “effectively null and void”.
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Richard Boyd Barrett supports central planning, a Soviet style system of economic organization that impoverished countless millions, that is incompatible with democracy and economic prosperity. Why does Mr Barrett think that out of the millions of economists in the world, not even a handful agree with the ‘learned analysis’, of this secondary school left wing English teacher? It irrelevant to Mr Barrett that capitalism and private enterprise has improved the standard of living of the ordinary man more than anything else; its relevant to Mr Barrett that the most capitalistic country in Latin America is the most rich, has the lowest corruption level, has the highest GDP, highest real income per capita, lowest amount living below the poverty line, lowest infant mortality rate, etc its irrelevant to Mr Barrett that Hong kong and Singapore are among the richest countries in the world with higher incomes that Sweden, Germany, France, the Uk etc etc; its irrelevant to Mr Barrett that millions have been taken out of ineffably atrocious poverty in China with the implementation of free-market capitalistic reform, its irrelevant to Mr Barrett that the poor is capitalistic countries are wealthier than the average people in state socialist countries or that obesity is more of a problem among the poor in capitalistic countries than among the rich. Barrett doesn’t care that prices don’t allocate resources in a socialist economy, that they don’t reflect supply and demand, that they don’t reflect scarcity; Barrett doesn’t care that socialism kills incentives to innovate, and for economic growth, kills the right to set up a business, and creates endless waste and dead weight loss, monumental shortfalls in total surplus; in fact he doesn’t care about facts, or the truth, he knows what he likes and doesn’t want to hear anything else; don’t little little things like the evidence or truth get in the way of his endless inarticulate regurgitation of yesterdays fallacies of central planning, soviet nostrums, erroneous assumptions and emotion-laden invective. A backbench ranter with laughable views.
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